


Keep this Safe

by electricbird



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Date Night, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-31 17:42:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13980180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/electricbird/pseuds/electricbird
Summary: Charity and Vanessa disagree on what makes a good date venue.





	Keep this Safe

**Author's Note:**

> I posted this on tumblr about a month ago, so if you're active over there this probably won't be new to you, sorry. I'm just finally getting my life in order.

“You know, when I agreed to come out with you tonight this isn’t what I had in mind,” Charity grumbles, pulling her coat around her a bit tighter. “I thought we’d go for dinner, or to the cinema, or anything that’s not this, really.” She threw her arm vaguely in the direction of the sign that read ‘Hotten Funfair’ and groaned. The multitude of flashing lights, fairground rides and screaming children only adding to her disappointment. “In fact, it’s really not too late to change our plans. I heard there’s a new bar opened not far from here. It’s indoors, so not mind-numbingly cold, and there’s not hundreds of kids running around the place.” She took a step closer to Vanessa, raised her eyebrows and turned her mouth up into a small, hopeful smile. 

“I told you to dress warm,” Vanessa retorts bluntly, not returning the smile, “but oh no, God forbid Charity Dingle be seen out in public in a jumper and hat.” 

“Well I didn’t know where we were going, did I?” Charity muttered, rolling her eyes and stamping her feet to try and get some feeling back into them.

“And if I’d told you we were coming here, you’d have dressed differently, would you?” Vanessa asked, raising an eyebrow.

“No, I’d have told you that this idea of a date night was ridiculous, and I’d have convinced you to go somewhere else,” Charity replied quickly, in a hushed tone.

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, even before Vanessa glared at her and turned to walk away, she knew she’d said the wrong thing. That she always says the wrong thing. Charity had always prided herself on being outwardly self-assured and confident, regardless of any inner turmoil, yet these last few months with Vanessa had turned everything upside down. She frequently found herself nervous and unable to find the right words whenever she was in the other woman’s presence and that frustrated Charity beyond belief. When, in a moment of apparent madness, she’d told Vanessa she felt like this, the Vet had insisted there was no such thing as the ‘right words’ but, Charity thinks, even she’s probably reconsidering that opinion now. She watched Vanessa walking away from her for a few moments before breaking into a short jog to catch up. This was also becoming a bit too much of a frequent habit, having to chase her because the fear of losing her completely was greater than her need for self-preservation. She knows she’ll regret all of this one day, when Vanessa realises she’s been wasting her time and that she really isn’t worth the effort, but until then she’s willing to forgo all sense of reason.

She quickly caught up to her girlfriend and grabbed her arm a bit too tightly, forcing her to stop. “Wait, babe, please. I’m sorry. This just isn’t my idea of a good time, okay?”

“Right,” Vanessa sighed, “and everything we do has to suit you. I get it. Look, let’s just go. I’m really not in the mood for this anymore.” She pressed her lips into a straight line and turned to walk back the way they’d just came.

“No, no. Stop,” Charity pleaded, placing her hands on either side of Vanessa’s shoulders before she could move away again. She gently urged the other woman to take a step back towards her before sliding her hands down and resting them on her waist. “This is coming out all wrong. I’m useless at all this. You know…words,” she said with a frustrated chuckle. She lent her head down to rest on Vanessa’s shoulder and kissed her neck gently. “I’m sorry,” she whispered into the other woman’s ear, delighting in the small shiver this entices out of Vanessa, “I’m cold, and I’m tired, and I could kill for some coffee right now. But we’re here and I know that despite the look on your face you still want to go and win a giant unicorn or get a candy floss sugar high or whatever. So, let’s go.”

Charity nudged the back of Vanessa’s shoulder with her own as a sign of encouragement, before starting to remove her arms from their position around her girlfriend’s waist. Vanessa quickly put a stop to this, grabbing her hands and holding them back in place. Charity shook her head slightly at the gesture. She couldn’t quite understand how all of this seemed so natural with Vanessa, how even in the middle of an argument the other woman still managed to make her feel more at ease than anyone else ever had.

“As nice as this is, babe, are we going in or not? We’re in the middle of the street and people are giving us funny looks.” Charity said, following the gaze of small child who was waiting with her family not far from them.

In spite of herself, Vanessa let out a hushed laugh and turned her head to look at Charity. “I didn’t think you cared about other people’s opinions? Especially not 4-year-old children.”

Charity freed one of her hands from Vanessa’s and poked the other woman’s side. “I don’t, thank you very much. What I do care about though, is getting in and out of here so that I can take you home and do things to you that a 4-year-old child should definitely not be seeing”. She uttered the last few words so slowly and deliberately that Vanessa had to bite down on her lip to supress the sigh that was threatening to give away her forgiveness. The smaller woman quickly spun around and grabbed Charity’s hand. “Okay, plan of action,” Vanessa said quickly whilst pulling Charity towards the entrance of the fairground, “quick walk around the place, grab some hot chocolate, cuddle up to each other on the ferris wheel, then back to mine. How does that sound?” She looked across at Charity expectantly. 

“That actually sounds like a good compromise,” Charity smirked and winked at Vanessa. “But wait, what about all the awful things you said you wanted to do? Games? Candyfloss? Where does that fit in to your plan, eh?”

Vanessa creased her brow in confusion before stopping and turning to face Charity. “Oh, you mean all of the things that you said I wanted to do?” She let the question hang in the air for a moment before continuing. “I thought we’d do all of that traditional stuff when we bring the kids next week. It’ll be far more enjoyable then.” She looks up at Charity and grins at the look of absolute horror on her face before heading off in the direction of a stall selling drinks.

“What do you mean when we come back next week?” Charity whines loudly, fully aware that Vanessa is out of ear shot. “Isn’t once bad enough?”

She folds her arms and lets out what is probably the most over dramatic sigh possible. It’s only when she drops her arms to her side and starts to follow Vanessa that she realises why she’s frustrated. It’s not because she’s been dragged to a fairground, in the freezing cold, in the middle of bloody February. It’s not even because she’s going to be dragged back next week with two small, over-excited children in tow. No, she’s frustrated because, despite her best efforts, she knows she’d go anywhere if it put a smile on Vanessa’s face. 

When she finally reaches Vanessa, she’s already waiting in a queue for hot chocolate. She moves in to stand beside her, trying to ignore the smirk on the Vet’s face and pauses for a moment before taking a deep breath. “Okay, fine. We come back next week. But no candy floss. It’s going to be bad enough without the three of you all hyped on sugar,” Charity sighs, continuing to be overdramatic since nobody witnessed it a couple of minutes ago. “Oh, and I’m not wearing one of your daft hats. I’m beginning to think you’ve got some ulterior motive for getting me into one and it’s not happening.” She looked across at Vanessa out of the corner of her eye and folded her arms in an act of defiance. The smaller woman looked pointedly at Charity and shook her head slightly before giving her the brightest smile she could offer. “It’ll be fun. I promise. I won’t let you have a bad day,” Vanessa says as she reaches across and takes Charity’s hand in her own, “and I don’t know what you’ve got against my hats, but I won’t force you to wear one.”

Charity lets out a breath that she didn’t know she’d been holding and laughs at Vanessa. Yeah, she thinks, she’d go absolutely anywhere to keep feeling as happy as this, to keep this unexpected addition to her life as safe as she was able to.

**Author's Note:**

> I was listening to [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6tMoGfaTFM) song when I wrote this. It isn't really connected, but it was what sparked my creativity so you might want to give it a listen.


End file.
